Literary Terms: Set 1 Flashcards
An understatement in which the affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary.
Ex. He’s not a bad ballplayer
Litotes
The repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures.
Ex. I love to sing, dance, and to read.
Parallelism
The intentional repetition of beginning clauses in order to create an artistic effect.
Ex. “We shall no flag nor fail. We shall go on the end, We shall Fight in Frant. We shall fight on the seas and oceans.”
Anaphora
Addressing an absent figure or the characterization of an abstract figure.
Ex. “Oh death, be not proud.”
Apostrophe
Using an object associated with something to represent it.
Metonymy
Using a part of an object to represent the whole.
Ex. The hand (synecdoche = part of the figure) that rocks the cradle (metonymy = associated with what it is replacing, in this case, a baby).
Synecdoche
One’s credibility as an author
Ethos
The emotional power of an appeal
Pathos
The intellectual power of an appeal
Logos
A stylistic device in which the author omits conjunctions in a sentence.
Ex. I came. I saw. I conquered.
Asyndeton
A stylistic device in which several coordinating conjunctions are used in succession in order to achieve an artistic effects.
Ex. There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, dunghills, and dust heaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summerhouses, and carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway.
Polysyndeton
The omission of a word or words. It refers to constructions in which words are left out of a sentence but the sentence can still be understood.
Ex. “The whole day, rain, torrents of rain,” What word is missing? What happened to the rain? Typically this would include “fell” or something equivalent.
Ellipsis
A figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (e.g., John and his license expired last week) or two others of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts).
Zeugma
A rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in revers order, in the same or a modified form.
Ex. “Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”
Chiasmus
The main clause or predicate at the end. The sentence unfolds gradually, so that the thought contained in the subject/verb group only emerges at the sentence’s conclusion. This is used for emphasis and can be persuasive by putting reasons for something at the beginning before the final point is made. It can also create suspense or interest for the reader.
Ex. “Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garment shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft, and slow,
Descends the snow.” = The subject is snow, but doesn’t appear until the end.
Periodic Sentence
